If you have been following the NBA since 2011, you are aware of the issue that is currently plaguing the league and (most) of its fans. I put “most” in parentheses there because if you are a Heat, Cavaliers, or Warriors fan, and yes, you too, Raptors fans, you’ve had your fun in the last 8 or so seasons of basketball. The issue is felt most in the fanbases of the other 26 teams in the NBA. It’s hard to deny that each season since Lebron James and Chris Bosh joined Dwayne Wade and the Heat in 2011 fans have gone into each season with the mindset that no other team will be able to beat either the Heat from 2011-2014, or the Warriors and Cavs from 2015-2019. Any true basketball fan understands there is not real parity within the NBA, and even this season, with all the injuries to the Golden State Warriors, we can still essentially point out that either either team in LA, or someone named Giannis, are the finals favorites this season.
Well, to address this issue, I have concocted a hypothetical, and obnoxiously unrealistic plan, that would restore order, and throw a jolt of excitement back into NBA Basketball. The general idea of this plan is to remove the factor of having a clear-cut favorite to win the finals before a season. Like I said before, since Lebron and Bosh joined D-Wade on the Heat in 2011 and won not 1, but 2, NBA Championships, and then the rise of the “Splash Bros’” Steph Curry and Klay Thompson in 2015, who tacked on another three titles of their own, we have seen only two teams not named the Miami Heat, Golden State Warriors, or Cleveland Cavaliers win an NBA title, and those are the Dallas Mavericks, and Toronto Raptors (against the Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson-less Warriors). I believe the recent streak of Lebron James appearing in 8 straight NBA Finals paint the picture as well as it needs to be painted.
So now that we are clear on the problem, lets discuss the solution. Keep in mind this is purely hypothetical, and just an outside the box idea. To start, let’s take a look at the standings prior to the 2020 All Star Game.
Let’s go out a limb here and say every team that is non-competitive and below the 8th seed in each conference will be forced to secede from the league and make their top players available to the teams that remain competitive in the NBA. For the sake of argument, lets exclude the Warriors for obvious reasons. From this, we have a pool of 32 of the league’s premier players, whose talents are effectively being wasted on teams who fail to compete against the league’s top dogs. Let’s take a look at this pool of players.
With our plan there would be 16 teams remaining in contention after the all-star break, and if we do the math right, 32 players are good enough for all 16 teams to get 2 of them each. With that being said, let’s have a draft! The pool of 32 players will be drafted in 2 rounds, with the weakest teams of the bunch receiving the top picks. Simple stuff, right? After the draft there will be 8 teams remaining in each conference, and to make things even more interesting, only 6 of those 8 will make the playoffs from each conference.
The idea itself may be a bit much to wrap your head around, and rightly so, but think of it this way. In an attempt to restore order to the NBA, and even force some organizations hands in becoming more competitive, we take the leagues bottom of the barrel teams, and we put them elsewhere. Where do we put them? Doesn’t matter, just not within our realm of the NBA anymore. After that we pull a pool of 32 players from those teams, who are most definitely part of the NBA’s top players and enter them in a draft for the remaining 16 teams who will be competitive moving forward and reduce the number of teams in the playoffs to 12 teams. Easy.
What does this do for the league and its fans exactly? Good question. By taking talents that include rising superstars, and established veterans from the NBA’S bottom feeders who refuse to be competitive year in and year out, and redraft them to the NBA’s playoff contenders, we (by way of total anarchy, but don’t mind that) essentially level the playing field between the NBA’s elite teams, and bring a fun, wild, and eye popping change to a league that so desperately needs one. With these changes in place, any team that is strong enough to remain, now has just as much of a chance to hoist the Larry O’Brien Championship trophy at the conclusion of the NBA season.
Featured Image from @tysonbeck on Instagram
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